Once a member of the WTO, Vietnam will join the global market of agricultural products, with total turnover of $559bil a year.

A 1bil-tonne market

A paradox exists in which imported fruits are always more favoured in Vietnam. For example, Ben Tre orange, which is a well known brand in Vietnam, sells at VND25,000 per kilo, while the oranges imported from the US are priced at VND45,000 per kilo. However, the Vietnamese still prefer the US oranges. Similarly, durian from Thailand is always the first choice of Vietnamese high income earners, despite the fact that Cai Mon durian is also of good quality.

Vietnam is proud to be the world’s second largest rice export nation. However, Australian Commodity Statistics 2005 showed that Vietnam’s export prices are the lowest among the levels offered by the current six rice exporters. Vietnam can sell rice at $218 per tonne, while Thailand can sell at $60.33 per tonne, and Australia at $509.9 per tonne.

The report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) showed that in Asia alone, 1bil tonnes of agricultural products are waiting to flow into Vietnam once the country opens its market.

Government should not ignore farmers

It is said that fruits grown along the Cuu Long River Delta, like Chin Hoa durian, Hai Hoa green-skin pomelo or Thanh Son sweet mango have been developed by the farmers themselves. They are not products of scientists or genetic researchers.

It is also clear that the lack of State support has led to missed opportunities for development of Vietnamese fruit exports.

Tran Du Lich, Head of the HCM City Economic Institute said that if the State leaves farmers alone with their development plans, Vietnam will never have a the fully developed fruit production industry it desires.

Vietnam’s fruits are delicious, but they are not of equal quality. The out-of-date technology in planting, harvesting, post-harvest and processing have made Vietnam’s products inferior in the world’s market.

With the modest plantation area of 260,000 ha, Thai fruits have been exported to every corner of the world, and have been flooding Vietnam, which has 750,000 ha of plantation area, three times more than Thailand.

While Australian farmers use planes to spay fertiliser, Vietnamese farmers are still cultivating on small scale garden blocks.

Mr Lich stressed that it is time to develop fruit-growing areas to replace small garden operations. Farmers cannot do this alone, and state support is very important in this issue.

Vietnam cannot survive in the WTO with hand-reared products. It needs products made in an industrial way, the economist said.

Source: Vietnamnet